the person I was speaking to suddenly said
"then how do you know if someone
knows something or not?
The question came because I'd been ranting that standardized testing was mainly just a test of memory skills or the ability to regurgitate somone else's information without fully understanding it, verifying it for a real truth and that more often than not, tests don't test knowledge.
So I deserved this question flying back at me to test my own knowledge.
knows something or not?
The question came because I'd been ranting that standardized testing was mainly just a test of memory skills or the ability to regurgitate somone else's information without fully understanding it, verifying it for a real truth and that more often than not, tests don't test knowledge.
So I deserved this question flying back at me to test my own knowledge.
Big, deep breath as the flood of everything I've learned or experienced about learning, everything I disagree with and everything, thought-through, everything I've experimented with and found merit in... all these other-people's-ideas jostling around for top priority
(pick me! pick me!)
...in the end, leaving me paralyzed and unable to answer. I mean, if you've ever been there too, you know the dilemma right? My god, my god: there's literally a theory for everything under the sun when it comes down to pedagogy (and andragogy) and whoa, this trails all the way back to Socrates and beyond.
I mean what to answer with first?
There isn't a one right answer.
There are many.
Which probably isn't terribly useful for you... so I should probably leave this post alone except for the fact that my fingers ache from not having blogged for so long and I've gotta share with you - you give me my buzz and keep me thinkin'...
My life has recently turned into this time-consuming, exciting, brain challenging world
of creating e-learning and m-learning products and we
(Voxy - I'm their academic consultant, if you missed that update)
are radically changing the status quo of language learning autonomously
~what we're working on producing next is seriously going to blow your minds :-)
~what we're working on producing next is seriously going to blow your minds :-)
...and, actually, I drafted this post out so very long ago and then never published it.
This is part of the H2LE (How-to-learn-English) posts and is a guide for learners on vocabulary acquistion. I've been working on it since 2003 and have used it for training teachers on the use of dictionaries in Ecuador and here in Germany use it as a learning-to-learn doc for adult language learners:
I can cheerfully add that everytime I learn something new, it'll change!
- To view in full-screen, see the icon on the right of the black box with slide numbers.
- To embed it on your own site, click on menu to grab the code.
- To embed in a Ning or other learning platform save your own copy and upload into the GoogleDocs app.
- To share this blog post with colleagues, tap on "bookmark" button at the bottom of this post - above the retweet button - and click on the social-networking/envelope/print icon.
- To send just the document to your students, right click over THIS LINK and select the option to copy the link-address then insert this into an email.
Useful links:
- N is for Noah Webster by Adam Simpson on Vicki Hollett's blog
- Repetition video with Scott Thornbury
- Larry Ferlazzo Student-Created Online Content (many, many, many posts!)
- Voxy's word nerds
- Ozge Karaoglu's alphabet of web2.0 tools
- Nik Peachey's daily activities (web 2.0 tools for students to explore!)
But going back to my original opening...
What does it mean to know something?
You know it when you can apply it in a different context,
at a different time and place.
You know it when you own it.
Agree?
As always anything to add or share with me - please do! If you've written a post or two about this subject, don't hesitate to add the link.
Karenne
Karenne
education
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